The next two decades will see fundamental shifts in the availability, prices and sources of fuel and alternative power systems, predicts Takeshi Uchiyamada, executive vice president of product planning for Toyota Motor Co.

Toyota expects 90% of the world vehicle fleet to be powered by some variant of an internal combustion engine in 2020—most of them hybrid-electric rather than IC-only configurations. Uchiyamada estimates that fewer than 10% of new vehicles sold in 20 years will use all-electric or fuel cell systems.

World oil production is likely to peak in about 10 years, as output of liquid fuels synthesized from coal, natural gas and biomass grows. Hydrogen production is not expected to significantly ramp up until 2030, along with an expansion in nuclear energy.

Uchiyamada made the forecasts and outlined Toyota’s corresponding powertrain strategy at a press briefing this week during the North America International Auto Show in Detroit.

Uchiyamada says conventional hybrids and more advanced models with plug-in capability are likely to dominate midsize passenger cars. All-electric systems are most likely in small, urban commuter vehicles, and hydrogen fuel cells are expected to emerge in long-range personal-use vehicles and heavy trucks.

Battery development will play a vital role in Toyota’s hybrid/electric/fuel cell initiatives. Although performance and basic material costs favor lithium-ion batteries, the technology is twice as expensive as nickel-metal-hydride systems because of its more complex manufacturing process and operating complexity. Koei Saga, who heads Toyota’s advanced technology efforts, says Toyota is pursuing chemistries that use lower-cost materials in place of current cobalt-based electrolytes.

The company unveiled its new FT-CH concept at the Detroit show and plans to introduce it in the U.S. and other worldwide markets in coming years. Aimed at younger, less affluent customers than the Prius attracts, the FT-CH rides on a 100-inch wheelbase. The four-seater will weigh less than 3,000 lbs and be more fuel-efficient than the company’s 50-mpg Prius hybrid.

General Motors Co., which began closing down its Saab Automobile AB unit a week ago, says it may need another four weeks to determine if it will sell the brand instead.

GM Europe President Nick Reilly confirms that the two most likely bids for Saab are from Spyker Cars NV and Genii Capital. GM turned down an earlier bid from Spyker. GM reportedly wants assurances that a buyer has sufficient funding not to require a loan from the European Investment Bank, but Swedish government officials say they met with GM on Monday to say Sweden is prepared to guarantee a €400 million loan to Saab from the EIB.

GM has offered conflicting signals about Saab for weeks. Reilly sounds cautiously optimistic, but GM Chairman/CEO Ed Whitacre and Vice Chairman Bob Lutz have downplayed Saab’s chances for survival. Last week GM said it hired Detroit-based AlixPartners LLP to shut down Saab but also was continuing to consider bids for the business.

OAO AvtoVAZ says it will increase its output by 50% to 446,000 cars, largely to meet an expected upturn in sales generated by Russia’s new scrappage program that begins in March. The company produced 920,000 vehicles in 2008.

AvtoVAZ is trying to emerge from a financial collapse that nearly bankrupted the company last year. In December, the Russian government pledged to contribute €1.7 billion to reimburse AvtoVAZ’s bank debt through government-owned Russian Technologies, which also holds a 25% stake in the carmaker.

BMW AG hopes to raise €742 million by selling two-year bonds backed by German auto leases, reports Bloomberg News. This is the second deal of its kind in Europe’s market for asset-backed debt. Last week Ford Motor Co. sold €300 million in bonds backed by car loans.

Such securities currently carry interest rates that are about 1.1 percentage points above benchmarked rates. The market for asset-backed bonds stopped in 2007 when the credit crunch began. Volkswagen AG’s €475 million asset-backed bond sale last September was the first such deal of its kind in more than a year, Bloomberg notes.

The British gross domestic product shrank by 4.8% last year, its biggest contraction since 1921, says the U.K.’s National Institute of Economic and Social Research. But the group estimates the country’s economy expanded 0.3% in the fourth quarter, thus ending six consecutive quarters of shrinkage.

The institute describes the fourth-quarter growth as evidence that “a recovery is starting to emerge.” But it also cautions that the country’s output has been flat since March.

France’s year-on-year inflation rate grew to 1% in December as crude oil prices rose sharply, says Insee, the country’s Paris-based statistics office. The jump was the biggest in 10 months. Prices increased by 0.3% from November to December.

Oil prices, which were about 80% higher by the end of 2009 than a year earlier, drove the inflation rate.

A report due tomorrow from Eurostat will show that inflation in the eurozone rose to 0.9% in December from 0.5% in November, according to Bloomberg News.

The EU’s auto industry has 6.5 million units of excess annual capacity—nearly half of actual sales volume, according to a new report from PricewaterhouseCoopers. The study sees little hope of a correction because of pressure by member governments to keep local plants open.

The report figures that the region’s vehicle plants are running at an average 70% of capacity. It warns that utilization will worsen this year as government scrappage incentive programs expire.

General Motors Co. says it remains optimistic about selling its Hummer SUV brand to Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co., even though the deal continues to await approval by the Chinese government.

GM and Tengzhong reached a tentative sale agreement six months ago and signed a definitive deal in October. But there has been little if any evidence of progress since. GM acknowledges that Tengzhong faces several challenges, including its lack of experience as a carmaker and Hummer’s unfavorable environmental image.

GM says it will stop making Hummer vehicles next week until the sale is approved. The company has a seven-month supply of unsold models.

Without continued scrappage incentives, demand for cars in Italy may plunge 21% to 1.7 million units this year, says Fiat SpA CEO Sergio Marchionne. He suggests that incentives be phased out gradually over two years.

The Italian government will decide later this month how to proceed. Last year’s program, which offered consumers €1,500 to scrap an old car, expired in December. Reuters says the government appears likely to renew the program at a lower rate.

France has opted for a similar strategy, reducing its former incentive to €700 from €1,000 last year. Renault SA says it will pay its customers the €300 difference through February.

Volkswagen AG tells Autosport.com it might be willing to enter Formula One racing when new engine regulations are introduced in 2013, but only if the FIA improves the “stability” of the sport, improves its image and takes steps to cut the cost of competition.

Kris Nissen, the company’s motorsport director, tells the online publication that the improvement will be necessary to lure any manufacturers back into F1. BMW, Honda and Toyota all have withdrawn since the global financial crisis began, citing the high cost of F1 participation. Last month Renault SA sold 75% of its F1 team to Luxembourg-based investor Genii Capital. Only two other carmakers—Ferrari and Mercedes-Benz—remain in F1.

Nissen tells Autosport.com that if VW does decide to enter F1, it will probably do it through one of its brands other than Volkswagen. The company now has 10 brands, including Audi, Bentley, Bugatti and Porsche.

Carmakers recalled 16.4 million cars and light-duty trucks in the U.S. market last year, up 56% from the total in 2008 to the highest total in four years, says the government’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Carmakers recalled a record 31 million vehicles in 2004.

For the first time, Toyota Motor Corp. topped the list, recalling nearly 4.9 million vehicles, including nearly 4.3 million to fix unintended acceleration problems with several models—in nine separate campaigns last year. Ford Motor Co. recalled 4.5 million vehicles, most of them to repair a cruise control switch that could cause a fire.

Volkswagen AG recalled 100,000 vehicles last year, the highest volume among European brands, according to NHTSA.

The agency says Honda Motor Co. was the only large carmaker in the American market to recall fewer vehicles in 2009 than it did in 2008: 454,000 compared to 797,000.